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Income gap in Wisconsin creeps up

Wisconsin boasts the fourth most equal distribution of family income in the country, but it’s still seeing wider disparity between the rich and the poor – and the middle, according to research released Thursday.

The wealthiest fifth of Wisconsin families had a 48.2% income boost in the last two decades, compared with a 14.3% increase for the poorest fifth and a 23.4% raise for the middle, according to a report from the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.